Interview: Keir Dullea, 2001: A Space Odyssey

Keir Dullea (speaking by phone from his home in Hartford, Connecticut) recently took the time to chat with Rip It Up about starring in director Stanley Kubrick’s original 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), its lasting fame and influence, and how…

All Is Lost

JC Chandor’s follow-up to Margin Call is something totally different, and possibly one of the only mainstream American movies ever to feature one character – and he’s not even named (the credits list him as ‘Our Man’).

After a short letter of apology and moral responsibility is read…

Non-stop

Liam Neeson’s post-Taken rebirth as a getting-on action star continues with this enjoyable whopper from Spanish director Jaume Collet-Sera, who also guided the grimly charismatic LN through the equally absurd Unknown.

Here Big Liam’s Bill Marks, a sour, boozy, haunted…

Utopia

John Pilger is outraged again in his latest doco – and with good reason. Co-directed by Alan Lowery and taking its title from an Aboriginal community that’s far from Utopian, this has Pilger, who still calls this country his homeland after 50-plus years in England, examine mainstream Australia’s treatment…

The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu)

The (supposedly) last animation effort from Studio Ghibli head and writer/director Hayao Miyazaki (drawing from his own factually-derived comic) has been criticised for lacking the magic of Ponyo, Spirited Away or My Neighbour Totoro and/or somehow ‘glossing over’ Japan’s involvement…

3 Days To Kill

Injured in a botched sting and stricken with cancer, CIA ground man Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner) returns home to France hoping to spend his final months with his estranged wife and daughter, but when his former team leader (Amber Heard)…

Wolf Creek 2

Co-writer/director/producer Greg Mclean’s sequel to his cultural-touchstone-cum-‘torture porn’-classic Wolf Creek (2005) is a major letdown, with extreme and splattery violence yet no real fear, characters we don’t care about and, painfully, a hammy performance by John Jarratt, whose Mick Taylor has now turned into a sort…

Le Week-End

Director Roger Michell’s follow-up to Hyde Park On Hudson is a smaller, more intimate and hurtful affair, drawn from a biting and bitterly human script by Hanif Kureishi.

A 60-something English couple, Nick (Jim Broadbent) and Meg (Lindsay Duncan), a philosophy professor and a teacher both facing…

Nebraska

In a career comprised of over 100 films, spanning across six decades, leading roles for Bruce Dern have been few and far between.

He makes up for lost time in Alexander Payne’s new family affair as Woody Grant, an ageing, easily-confused former alcoholic (beer doesn’t count) with…

Lone Survivor

Many will insist that this, writer/producer/director Peter Berg’s ‘low-budget’ war drama, is brilliant simply because it’s based (based!) on fact – but that ain’t good enough, soldier!

Opening with real footage of Seal training where young men get in touch with their inner suicidal…

Ghostbuster Harold Ramis dies at 69

Harold Ramis, best known for his key roles in blockbuster comedies such as Groundhog Day, Analyze This, Animal House, Caddyshack and the famous Ghostbusters series, has died due to complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, a disease of the blood vessels,…

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Drawn from Mandela’s autobiography and premiered in London on the night he died last December, English director Justin Chadwick’s biopic condenses much (despite a 141 minute running time) but survives due to beautifully restrained performances by Idris Elba and Naomie Harris (both Londoners) and a welcome absence…

Endless Love

This second filming of Scott Spencer’s novel (after the even dorkier 1981 version) is overheated, melodramatic hokum, even though the cast is okay and there’s something almost comforting in the way that this goofy plotline never gets old.

Co writer/director Shana Feste’s take on the tale…

Cate Blanchett wins yet another award

Cate Blanchett’s season of awards has continued, taking out the Best Actress BAFTA for her role as a neurotic New York socialite in the Woody Allen-directed Blue Jasmine.

Blanchett dedicated the award to the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

“You raised…

James Franco set to direct feature film

It seems James Franco is on a mission to prove that there is nothing he can’t do.

The American Golden Globe winning actor, screenwriter, producer, teacher, author, photographer, lead singer and pin-up boy continues his directing adventure with the announcement he…

Last Vegas

Unkindly being promoted as a Pensioner Hangover, this cheesy audience-pleaser from director Jon Turteltaub is stickily sentimental, rife with clichés and preposterously predictable, and yet, of course, all that’s forgiven due to the four stars, all in strapping form and having a fine time.

The rich,…

12 Years A Slave

English writer/director Steve McQueen’s next pic after his Hunger and Shame is a vastly different and much-praised film that uses America’s dark and repressed past to comment upon its dark and repressed present.

Drawn by screenwriter John Ridley from Solomon Northup’s autobiography, this initially finds Northup…

The Wolf Of Wall Street

Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese team up for the fifth time in the glitzy, licentious tale of Jordan Belfort, a real life Gordon Gekko who built a multi-million dollar empire as a corrupt stock broker, pouring his money into drugs and hookers, before losing it all and going…

New Port Adelaide Film Festival Announced

Film Buff Central, along with supporting partners Renewal SA and the City of Port Adelaide Enfield, have announced the first annual 9:16 Film Festival. The festival will showcase the work of seven South Australian film makers in 9:16 (portrait) aspect…

47 Ronin

This lumbering vanity vehicle for star Keanu Reeves (50 this year!) features him looking as miserable and bored as the audience, and while some have been offended by the iffy white-dude-saves-the-Asians undercurrent here, the whole thing’s so deadeningly tedious that it’s hard to care about…

Inside Llewyn Davis

One egocentric half of a folk duo, with an affinity towards tabby cats, Llewyn Davis is trying to make it as a solo artist, but he is hindered by his own self-sabotage.

Learning he may have got his friend’s girl pregnant,…

Adelaide Director Wins Sundance Award

Local director Ashlee Page says winning a Sundance award is a “dream come true”.

The Kiss director was the recipient of Sundance’s Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award, which recognised her as one of four emerging global independent filmmakers.

Page collected the…

Her

Writer/director Spike Jonze (in his first feature since that ill-advised version of Where The Wild Things Are and, for the first time, using his own script), here presents us with a film more loaded and moving than his rather impersonal Being John Malkovich and Adaptation.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Freely adapted from the character created by the late Tom Clancy, this Kenneth Branagh-directed (no, really) actioner feels ho-hum despite violent fights, expensive chases and Keira Knightley going goofily girly.

Chris Pine (taking time out from Star Treks) is the young, updated John/Jack Ryan (already…

Cutie and the Boxer

First-time director/producer/cinematographer Zachary Heinzerling’s documentary study of the 40-year marriage of New York-based ‘boxing painter’ Ushio Shinohara and his long-suffering wife Noriko is impressive, but frequently grates simply due to the inescapable fact that Ushio is such a pig.

Opening…

Free Birds

After directing polar opposites Horton Hears A Who! and Jonah Hex, Jimmy Hayward comes down on the side of animation, with a Z-Grade movie that conveniently brings its own turkeys.

Owen Wilson is Reggie, the turkey who receives a presidential pardon during Thanksgiving celebrations and is headed…

Oh Boy

This B+W ‘tragicomedy’ from Jan Ole Gerster is an uncomfortable experience, partially as the tone shifts so suddenly but mostly as our directionless ‘hero’ Niko Fischer (Tom Schilling) is so often such a jerk.

Dumped by his girlfriend in the opening scene (even as he…

Short Term 12

A feature length remake of writer/ director Destin Cretton’s 2008 short, this US drama features raw playing and, at times, surprising humour, making for a much less daunting experience than it might sound.

Grace (Brie Larson) is a 20-something supervisor at a foster care facility for at-risk teenagers,…

The Battle Of The Sexes

Erskine and Zara Hayes’ entertaining documentary is far more than a mere sporty pic, as it combines file footage, modern interviews, a cool soundtrack and lots of ‘maintain the rage’ detail.

Depicting the sexist mood of America and the world in the ‘50s and ‘60s,…

Game of Thrones Season 4 trailer released

After a long wait/winter, the official trailer for Game Of Thrones Season 4 has been released.

First impressions: Jaime’s haircut! A silhouette of a dragon flying over the King’s Landing! Daenerys borderlining on bloodthirsty tyranny! Cersei crying real tears!

Game Of Thrones Season…

Creator Jeff Wayne talks The War Of The Worlds

Jeff Wayne recently talked to Rip It Up about the latest incarnation of his classic rock opera take on HG Well’s The War Of The Worlds, recently filmed live at London’s O2 Arena and out now on DVD.

RIU: Jeff,…

Stranger By The Lake

French writer/director Alain Guiraudie’s lowbudget queer drama is an intriguing, unsettling character study.

Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps), an aimless, empty young man, drives to the same lakeside every day, a gay beat where men go to meet, swim, sunbathe naked and enjoy sexual encounters in the nearby…

The Book Thief

Australian author Markus Zusak’s 2005 novel The Book Thief is given prestige international treatment (it’s an American/German coproduction filmed in Germany with Australian, English, French and German players).

The result is a finely-played WW2 drama with a little awkwardness and a central literary device that doesn’t quite work. Narrated by…

Saving Mr Banks

Many have already raved about this effort from the Disney corporation, and how it distorts the truth about the relationship between ‘Uncle Walt’ and PL Travers (AKA Helen Lyndon Goff), and yet it is enjoyable – as long as you accept that it’s sheer fantasy.

Muscle Shoals

While it may initially sound like a medical condition or an obscure Lynyrd Skynyrd lyric, the town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, is home to the renowned Fame Studios, where a group of white guys were integral in creating the R&B sound of the late 1950s…

The Inbetweeners to film movie sequel in SA town Marree

The stars of the British TV show The Inbetweeners will be in the South Australian outback town Marree this week filming The Inbetweeners Movie sequel.

The town, located about 680km north of Adelaide, will host around 65 cast and crew members from Monday,…

August: Osage County

Tracy Letts’ 2007 award-friendly play gets the bigscreen treatment, with an astonishing cast in memorably horrible form.

In Osage County, Oklahoma, we meet drunk, depressed Beverly Weston (Sam Shepard) as he hires Johnna (Misty Upham) to care for his cancersuffering, pill-popping, drama-queen wife Violet (Meryl…

Walking With Dinosaurs: The Movie

Everyone loved the three BBC Walking With Dinosaurs series, and this 3D animated US epic is a co-production with ‘BBC Earth’ expanding upon those smallscreen faves, and purists are already raving about how it gives the dinos cute voices (or, actually, gives them voiceovers, as…

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

In Walter Mitty’s (Ben Stiller) head he is a quick-witted, confident adventurer who always gets the girl.

In reality, he lives a quiet, awkward life, has never gone anywhere of note, and has never done anything remarkable, but all that is about…

The Hobbit: Desolation Of Smaug

This second installment in Peter Jackson’s second Middle Earth series doesn’t require all that overextended scene setting, and features more of his signature (and sometimes wildly OTT) action, some nudge-nudge gagging about his original LOTR pics and in Smaug the…

Philomena

A pet project for co-writer/co-producer/ star Steve Coogan and elegantly directed by Stephen Frears, this factually-based drama is powerfully emotional but frequently surprisingly funny – and, it must be said, a curious choice for a Christmas release.

Disgraced and unemployed political journalist Martin Sixsmith (Coogan) is looking…

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

It’s been almost 10 long years since that first flick, Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy, hit the screens and (no, really) wasn’t much of a hit, making it the sort of pic (see Austin Powers and Donnie Darko) that…

American Hustle

Very funny but not quite a comedy (as the Golden Globes seem to think), this factually-based effort from co-writer/director David O Russell (turned out shortly after Silver Linings Playbook) is a veritable who’s who of stars he’s worked with before, and they’re all in fine,…

The Railway Man

Director Jonathan Teplitzky’s fourth feature only, as drawn from the memoir penned by Eric Lomax (1919 – 2012), this long-in-development tale of war and its lifelong effects on those who survive is graced by strong performances by Nicole Kidman and a career-best Colin Firth.

In 1980, Eric (Firth),…

Frozen

Clicking the gears back in place with Tangled, then treading water with the critically okay though commercially popular Brave, the Disney gang continue recovering from their mediocre years in the early 2000s and re-establishing themselves as animation masters with a new princess movie, and, to sweeten…

The Gilded Cage (La Cage Doree)

Ruben Alves, co-writer/director/bit player in this, his popular-in-France-and-Portugal feature début (after a successful career helming shorts and acting), means well and is kindly dedicated to Alves’ own parents and émigrés everywhere, and yet it suffers from the same problems as…

Cate Blanchett nominated for Golden Globe

The nominations are in for the 71st Golden Globe Awards to be hosted by Saturday Night Live comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

Cate Blanchett has received the nod for her leading role in Woody Allen‘s latest film Blue Jasmine. The…

Closed Circuit

This irksomely ‘topical’ UK/US co-production from director John Crowley (who was happier with the moving Is Anybody There?, with Michael Caine) is one of those odd movies where everything should conceivably work and yet very little actually does, and it…

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2

Opening with the credit ‘A Film By A Lot Of People’, this Sony Pictures Animation follow-up to the 2009 original (drawn, sort of, from the 1978 book by Judi and Ron Barrett) from co-directors Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn is…

Night Train To Lisbon

Another in a crop of recent pics (and filmed books) all about the power of literature (like Mr Pip, the forthcoming The Book Thief and so on), Danish director Bille August’s digging-up-the-past drama features a lovely performance by Jeremy Irons, who does…

Delivery Man

While many (rightly) rant and rave about remakes, especially remakes of foreign language pics, what’s striking about this new take on the French-Canadian Starbuck is that its co-writer/director Ken Scott was enlisted to adapt his original script and direct the remake, and the result is that it’s pretty…

The Spectacular Now

Director James Ponsoldt’s drama sometimes seems like his underrated Smashed (look for it on DVD) with a troubled teen overlay.

It would also be a shame if this tough, often funny and yet bitingly sad effort was dismissed as some crass college comedy. Sutter Keely (Miles…

Kill Your Darlings

Daniel Radcliffe continues to show he has more to offer than Harry Potter in his most grown-up role since his onstage performance in Equus caused all that hubbub, and Dane DeHaan continues to cement himself as Hollywood’s newest young psychopath in the story of Alan Ginsberg’s…

One Chance

As One Direction took over the world and Susan Boyle went insane, the story of Paul Potts’ rise to fame was somewhat overshadowed by his more fame-friendly reality TV successors, until now.

In 2007 Potts was a mild-mannered Welsh car phone salesman with zero confidence and…

How I Live Now

This latest from director Kevin Macdonald (of pics like The Last King Of Scotland and State Of Play) is drawn from a ‘young adult’ novel by Meg Rosoff but, surprisingly, proves rather more adult than expected.

American Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) is an angry late-teen who feels cursed: her…

Carrie

This remake of Brian De Palma’s 1976 filming of Stephen King’s breakthrough novel is given a modern makeover and a female director (Kimberly Peirce of Boys Don’t Cry), as if, perhaps, to take the pervy edge out of the material,…

The Darkside

Director/cinematographer Warwick (Samson And Delilah) Thornton’s documentary is a mysterious effort that ostensibly features Australian ghost stories told by familiar actors and unknowns, and yet there’s more going on here than meets the eye.

The first tale, heard in voiceover in a sunlit bedroom, is very…

Filth

James McAvoy is scarily fine in this filming of Irvine (Trainspotting) Welsh’s 1998 novel, and just about gets us to like Detective Bruce Robertson, our racist, whoring, alcoholic, cokedup, delusional, corrupt and damaged as fuck ‘hero’.

Writer/director/producer Jon S Baird’s chaotic take on Welsh’s almost-unfilmable tale has…

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

This sequel to 2012’s filming of Suzanne Collins’ first HG novel has more derivative violence, more puzzled stars, more heavy-handed satire and that weird dystopian future that blends Nazi Germany, Battle Royale, Doctor Who, Gladiator, ‘80s music videos and IKEA. Traumatised Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is…

Blackfish

In 1991, tragedy struck Canadian aquatic park Sealand of the Pacific, when a trainer fell into a tank and was drowned by the orcas inhabiting it.

The park closed down, the whales were sold to SeaWorld and, apart from the occasional activist group making general complaints about…

Adoration

Adapted from a novel by Doris Lessing (who died this week at 94) and directed by Anne Fontaine (of French movies with strong feminine themes like Nathalie… and Coco Avant Chanel), this should have been a tough, psychodramatic character study…

Warwick Thornton, Director Of ‘The Darkside’

Warwick Thornton was in Adelaide for the premiere of his The Darkside during the recent Adelaide Film Festival, and took the time to talk to Rip It Up about this intriguing, playful and unsettling documentary (of sorts).

RIU: So Warwick,…

Enough Said

Writer/director Nicole Holofcener’s bitey dramatic comedies (like Please Give and Friends With Money) are usually under-the-radar offerings, but her latest has received much publicity as it’s the second-to-last film featuring the late, great James Gandolfini (or ‘Jim’, according to the…

Twenty Feet From Stardom

Producer/director Morgan Neville’s documentary studies background singers (and dancers and often ‘eye candy’) – as in the ones who performed oh-so-close to stars and helped make them sound fabulous yet, somehow, never managed to hit it quite as big as…

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

With the other Jackasses having seemingly lost the heart after the (unrelated) death of co-star Ryan Dunn, Johnny Knoxville heads out on his own in a spin-off, of sorts, donning the prosthetics to become Irving Zisman, the morally questionable octogenarian.

Mr Pip

A labour-of-love from NZ-born but America-conquering writer/producer/director Andrew Adamson, adapting Lloyd Jones’ novel and finished before he tackled Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Way, this is notable for featuring Hugh Laurie in a seriously un-House-ish role.

In war-torn, late ‘80s Bougainville,…

The Fifth Estate

Julian Assange has denounced Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance in this, director Bill Condon’s filming of the WikiLeaks story, without seeing it (for obvious reasons), and yet the English BC nails the whole ‘character’ of Julian: the affected vocal tics, the weird smile, the paranoiacum-megalomania and the ‘Smash The State’…

I Am Divine Review

Super-prolific documentary producer/director Jeffrey Schwarz’s latest is a study of the life and times of the late-lamented, 300 pound drag-queen-cum-movie-star-cum-disco-diva-cum-almost-mainstream-icon Divine (1945 – 1988), ‘underground’ filmmaker John Waters’ great pal, muse and partner in crime, and…

Serenity Now: Summer Glau Coming To Supanova

When Joss Whedon’s space cowboy sci-fi series, Firefly, met an untimely end, protests from outraged fans saw justice through the film Serenity, which acted as a reboot, wrap up and sequel of sorts. As the 10 year anniversary since Serenity’s release looms,…

Insidious: Chapter 2 Review

The ‘final’ collaboration between Saw bigtimers James Wan (co-writer/director) and Leigh Whannell (co-writer/co-star) is, like their original Insidious, a cool spook-fest on a low-budget again starring actors who’d normally never be caught dead in such nonsense.

Offering an unlikely 1986 sequence before picking up where…

Fruitvale Station Review

In the early hours of January 1, 2009, Oscar Grant (Michael B Jordan) and his friends were riding the train home from New Year’s celebrations in San Francisco when a fight broke out on their carriage.

Oscar and his friends weren’t the instigators, but when police…

Fly Me To The Moon Review (Un Plan Parfait)

Another randomly retitled French comedy, this one offers irksome work from stars Diane Kruger and Dany Boon as another movie couple who would never get together in real life.

Related as a dinner party anecdote, we watch as Isabelle (Kruger) struggles with the fear of her…

The Butler Review

Forest Whitaker leads an unyielding parade of impressive actors (John Cusack, Lenny Kravitz, Vanessa Redgrave and Alan Rickman to name but a few) in Lee Daniels’ (Precious) latest tale of triumph over suffering, this time through the eyes of Cecil Gaines (Whitaker), a humble butler who served in the…

Leigh Whannell Talks Insidious: Chapter 2

Before he changed the nature of Hollywood horror films by writing and starring in the original Saw, Leigh Whannell was the ‘film guy’ on Saturday morning music and youth ABC program Recovery. As he tells Rip It Up, it was after seeing…

I Met Hindley Street

I Met Hindley Street is the latest in the I Met series from The Australian Bureau Of Worthiness, a collective helmed by actor Emma Beech, director Tessa Leong and visual artist James Dodd.

They have previously staged I Met Goolwa, I Met Geelong, I…

Thor: The Dark World Review

Chris Hemsworth’s third go at playing god/superhero/whatever Thor is still fun enough as he certainly looks and sounds the part, and new director Alan Taylor knows that there has to be gags sprinkled liberally throughout, or all that pompous Asgardian stuff will get awfully…

Beachside Cinema Coming To Adelaide

Ben & Jerry’s Openair Cinema will be coming to Adelaide’s beaches for the very first time this December.

The open cinema, which will be set up beachside in Glenelg, will be running from Dec 1 – 22 with a stellar line-up…

ABC’s Call Out For ‘Fresh Blood’ Comedy Talent

Do you think you’re the next Chris Lilley or Shaun Micallef? Wondering where to go with your script, strapped for cash to make your idea come alive? Then you need to check out Fresh Blood.

The ABC and Screen Australia…

Dean O’Gorman: Supanova

Dean O’Gorman is, he explains, “a little rusty and blurgh” today after just getting off the plane from LA, but he’s still keen to talk about his role as the dwarf Fili in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy, how much he’s looking…

Machete Kills Review

Multi-tasker Robert Rodriguez (directing, producing, co-editing, working on the FX and music and serving as cinematographer) sequelises his Machete, originally a joke trailer in Grindhouse, and manages one of his most messy and (even for this sort of nonsense) ludicrous efforts.

There are starry and…

Blancanieves Review

Inspired, perhaps, by The Artist (or, instead, happily continuing an odd new trend for B+W silent movies), writer/director/producer Pablo Berger’s handsome Spanish production (with English subtitles) updates the Grimm Brothers Snow White tale to the world of 1920s bullfighting – and, well, why not?

Not…

Denis O’Hare: The King’s Speech

Before Denis O’Hare was ripping the spines out of newsreaders as the King Of Mississippi, Russell Edgington, on HBO’s True Blood, or as Jessica Lange’s henchmen on FX’s American Horror Story, he and director Lisa Peterson worked on adapting Homer’s The Iliad.

O’Hare…

Captain Phillips Review

Directed by Paul Greengrass, who before, between and after his two Bourne pics gravitated to true stories (Bloody Sunday, United 93, Green Zone), presents another factually-based tale, this time drawn from the 2009 hijacking of the US container ship Maersk Alabama by four Somali pirates (it would…

State Theatre Company: Maggie Stone

In 2010, award winning playwright Caleb Lewis was commissioned by State Theatre Company Of South Australia, then under the artistic direction of Adam Cook, to pen a new work.

Three years later, the company will stage the world premiere of Maggie Stone, a play set…

Movember Movie Season at Rocket Rooftop

In celebration of Movember, Rocket Rooftop will host free weekly film sessions to pay homage to the finest moustaches of the silver screen.

The Mo Movie Season will kick off with a special screening of Anchorman at Marion’s Event Cinemas…

Adelaide Transitions Film Festival

The second annual Adelaide Transitions Film Festival kicks off on the 1st of November 2013 at the Mercury Cinema.

This year’s program features an amazing line-up of inspirational documentaries about the changemakers, innovators and activists who are fuelling the transition…

Patrick Review

Director Mark Hartley’s doco Not Quite Hollywood popularised the term ‘Ozploitation’, and while he seems the most likely candidate to remake a prime slice of the stuff, Richard Franklin’s Patrick (1978), he can’t do much with it except add a…

Moonlight Cinema Returns This November

Moonlight Cinema will return to parks around the country this November for its 18th annual season featuring everything from  Monty Python to The Hunger Games.

The open air cinema will take place in Adelaide’s iconic Botanic Park over three months…

About Time Review

Writer/director Richard Curtis’ third film in the top job is a more concentrated, philosophical and even daring effort than the more conventional (and messy) Love Actually and The Boat That Rocked, with a central plot conceit handled in a fashion…

Alan Partridge:  Alpha Papa Review

Co-writer/producer/star Steve Coogan has mixed feelings about his most famous character (amusingly expressed as he plays ‘himself’ in the TV series and film, The Trip), and director Declan Lowney’s filming of Partridge’s first big screen adventure does feel a little…

Prisoners Review

As two families celebrate Thanksgiving together, their young daughters go outside to play and don’t come back.

Police question the driver (Paul Dano) of an RV seen in the area, but the leading detective (Jake Gyllenhaal) can’t build enough evidence to charge him. As hours turn…

Sharknado Review

Originally made for TV by director Anthony C Ferrante and now being bandied about as a contender for ‘Midnight Movie’ status (like Rocky Horror), this ludicrously cheapjack outing has a barmy enough premise to keep it interesting for a while,…

Tracks Review

Drawn from the true story of Robyn Davidson and her autobiographical works, this AFF-flagship film suffers from some awkwardness and earnestness, especially in its early stages, and yet it works due to committed direction by John Curran, sometimes breath-taking (and…

Ivan Sen: Director Of ‘Mystery Road’ Interview

Director Ivan Sen recently talked to Rip It Up about his follow-up to Toomelah, Mystery Road, and explained why he filled so many roles on the production, what it was like to work with a cast of familiar Aussie players,…

Watch: Trailer For Wes Anderson’s New Film ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’

The trailer has been released for Wes Anderson’s upcoming comedy-drama The Grand Budapest Hotel, featuring an all-star cast that includes Tilda Swinton and Bill Murray.

The film centres on a prestigious European hotel in the ‘20s and its legendary concierge, Gustave H…

Metallica: Through The Never

Not a documentary like the too-much-information Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster nor a straightforward (ie dull) concert movie, this 3D outing from director Nimród Antal features a performance by the titular band staged for the camera (and a stereotyped audience) and is set against a ‘surreal adventure’…

Blackfish Review

With its unsettling trailer doing the rounds for a few months before, there was a lot of hype surrounding Blackfish. While eerie in its premise, the execution of Blackfish offered a somewhat-balanced argument that could essentially be for applied to…

Mystery Road Review

This latest effort from Ivan (Toomelah) Sen, Australian writer, director, cinematographer, editor, music scorer and more, is one of those rather sneaky pics that can be seen two different ways: it’s either a broodingly entertaining dramatic thriller about lies and…

The Darkside Review

Director/cinematographer Warwick (Samson And Delilah) Thornton’s documentary is a pleasingly mysterious effort that’s ostensibly a series of distinctly Australian ghost stories told by both familiar actors and unknowns,…

Review: The Boy Castaways

We know what you want. Or so they claimed.

The tagline for the Adelaide Film Festival, HIVE and South Australian Film Corporation’s The Boy Castaways isn’t quite accurate for this wildly ambitious project.

Writer/director Michael Kantor comes from a theatre…